<p>Personally, as a senior at Andover, I think any trade off is more than worth it. Let’s be real --I wouldn’t have found or fell in love with most of my current academic and extracurricular passions anywhere else. Chances are, at another school, I would’ve been an objectively worse applicant, factoring out any prep school bias, just based on what I’ve had the chance to be exposed to here.</p>
<p>By the numbers, 1/3 of Andover grads end up at Ivies or near Ivies (Amherst, Stanford, MIT, etc.)</p>
<p>So yes – it’s probably marginally harder, considering you’re competing for a shrinking number of slots for the prep school demographic with other, extraordinarily prepared kids. But admissions officers understand the challenge and won’t punish you for an imperfect GPA, and it’s worth it for the opportunity.</p>
<p>But what do I know? I don’t hear back from Harvard about my early app until 5 pm tonight, so I guess we’ll find out then.</p>
<p>lilybilly, did you get in Harvard? How many of your friends got in? I know of a day school with 100 seniors just had 5 admitted by Harvard early.</p>
<p>I previously posted a version of this in the “would you send your kid to Andover again” thread. Our kid transferred from an independent school to PA. She went from being a top 5% student to 75th percentile and, I suspect, that her realistic choice of colleges is down a notch too as she is no longer top of class, is not a stand-out in the orchestra, and is a non-captain athletic team member. But, for us, that is a secondary consideration as she’s academically challenged, really happy socially and is maturing really well. </p>
<p>So, what seems to be happening is that we made a trade-off. I would bet that the school ‘quality’ will be down a notch. But the benefits are huge. We have a happy kid, with many new interests, who knows the world is full of other really smart and driven kids who will go to a non-Ivy great school.</p>
<p>I suppose we are ‘giving’ to ‘get’. For us, we are really happy with her choice and of greater imort, she would do it again in a heartbeat.</p>